


Road to Nowhere

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 11:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Lost after his departure from Overwatch, Genji ends up in a capsule hotel in Shanghai during his travels where he meets an omnic who is not easily scared.





	Road to Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> For Jojo in the Genyatta Secret Santa 2017. Thank you for the prompt and have great holidays!

Genji let the transparent door of what could charitably described as his room slide open and inspected the space that he was too tall to stand in. He was in the bottom row of pods. The ground of the capsule was entirely made up of a mattress covered in a sheet smelling of aggressive chemical detergent. The walls were white plastic with a grate for the AC unit in the back.

It was not a lack of money that had led him to the capsule hotel – his Overwatch salary had only ever accumulated because he’d had no purpose but the fight then –, but a random stray thought, an interest. Back in Hanamura, in another life, he had passed by these places at the train stations and when he led girls back to love hotels after a night out, where one room would cost more for a couple of hours than one of these pods did for a week. He had always wondered what they were like and anyway, it was not like he had anywhere else to be these days.

Genji climbed inside, sitting on the mattress that was soft with wear and gave away as his body sank down. It was these small stray thoughts, wisps of curiosity and old interests that Genji grabbed on to desperately whenever he found them. There was so little left that he considered himself, a few chunks of flesh and even less of a personality, that he could not afford to let them go.

The man he used to be was gone, as he had to be, because he was a product of a time of careless fun and thoughtless living that Genji had long left behind. However, what Hanzo and Overwatch had created in its stead, Genji could not even start to make sense of. There was anger and a black hole where his future used to be, but that didn’t seem enough to make a person.

This lack had made the three weeks since he had left Overwatch erratic. He had wandered some of rural China because he had left his last post in the region, followed a small river to its source and then fled the startled looks of the villagers who were probably not even used to omnics, let alone a cyborg. He had eaten a lot of food he had never tried before mostly to avoid the comparison of taste his brain always drew up when he had anything he used to eat as a human and his synthetic tongue made it taste off. He had climbed in the mountains though he had always found nature quite boring just for something to do. He’d come to Shanghai because it was the closest city.

Slowly, he stretched out on the mattress and moved his arm to pull the transparent door shut. Most closed capsules had their curtains drawn, but he could look into a few. Across the hall an old man lying stiffly on the bed that was the ground was reading a book with a broken spine. In the pod next to him, a woman was disentangling her headphones from a fake pearl necklace. She looked ready to head out into the nightlife in her tacky, multi-coloured sequin dress.

Genji was about to close his own curtains to find a little sleep after his day-long trek through the city when he saw an omnic walk down the hallway between the pods. In a place like this, an omnic was not so uncommon, since they often worked low-paying jobs or simply weren’t welcome in better hotels. The omnic’s model was common and badly-made: wires showed, easy to pull and cut, vital parts of the movement apparatus were exposed. He was odd for his clothes, though, wearing sandals and wide, old trousers and ropes for a belt adorned with a large tassel with wooden pearls. He reminded Genji of a monk from the old tales and it clashed with the decisively modern look of the rest of his being.

It seemed like the robot sensed the eyes on him for he turned his head. Downward-slanting holes in his faceplate gave him the appearance of a man with a benevolent look. Genji had not seen this model of faceplate before, not that he could remember, anyway. He looked up at what seemed like his eyes and they held their gazes for a moment until the omnic nodded his head in a greeting and then took another step and used a key card from some pocket in his baggy trousers to open the door to his pod across the hall from Genji.

Curiously enough, the omnic did not shut his blinds after he had sat down on the mattress in the capsule. He folded his iron bar legs and rested his hands in his lap after putting down the linen sack he had carried at the waist. The way he sat, back straight, hands palm-up on his thighs, and his expressionless faceplate looking at the wall, he seemed to be meditating.

Shambali, they called the omnic monks, Genji remembered. Ordinary life had largely passed him by during his time in Blackwatch, the only stream of information his mission briefings, but here and there he would catch a conversation or report and considering the history Overwatch had with omnics, obviously the Shambali had been a matter of both interest and concern. From what he’d heard, their little sect was usually shut up in the mountains somewhere, though, or travelled in delegations.

He watched the omnic for a little while longer before he remembered to close his own curtains, staring at the dim bulb worked into the ceiling above instead while he listened to the AC whirr.

-

For a few days, Genji strolled through the city, aimless. He stayed away from places full of people, uneasy with their furtive glances and open stares. It felt like there was a wall between him and those he encountered, impermeable mostly because it made him question what he had to gain from reaching out to anyone, in the end. If family ties could not keep him from having his throat slit, there wasn’t much of a reason to put much trust in anyone.

On his journeys, he passed too many flying shuttle stations that promised Tokyo was just a couple of hours away, perfect for a day trip. The way from Tokyo to Hanamura was not long, and Genji was as drawn by the prospect of going back to where he had dismantled his family as he was repulsed by it. And Hanzo was still alive…

He returned the evening of the third day to find the omnic from across the hall saying his goodbyes to a young woman sticking her head out of one of the pods in the upper row at the entrance of their alley of capsules. As the omnic turned around, a brass ball with simplistic carvings slipped out of the heavy bag hanging from his belt and fell to the ground with a clatter. Automatically, Genji leaned to pick it up as it rolled towards his feet.

“Thank you,” the omnic said, having switched from Mandarin, which he’d spoken to the woman, to English. It was as good a guess as any for the language he would speak, Genji thought, since his face was completely covered by the mask. He supposed he had to be grateful the omnic hadn’t tried communicating with him in code. At least he still looked that human.

“It’s no problem,” he said in Japanese, knowing the omnic should have all major languages stored in a database.

The omnic tilted his head.

“It’s always a nice thing to meet a kind traveller,” he said, now matching Genji’s choice of language.

“You don’t know me well enough to say I’m kind,” Genji answered unpleasantly, continuing on his way down the narrow hallway between the pods. The omnic followed.

“That’s true,” the omnic allowed. “Although a shame.”

“Why?”

“I strive to get to know as many people as I can. I find it is never wasted time to get to learn more about someone. May I ask what you are doing here?”

With anyone else, this was likely a good way to start small talk, but Genji was much too raw to give him the easy answer he probably desired. In fact, he considered giving none at all, but the omnic was the first person since he had left Overwatch to have more than a few words of conversation with him. Genji did not consider himself social anymore, but he was worried he was losing the ability to verbalise sentences because he did it so little.

“I think what I’m mostly doing here is not going to Japan,” he admitted, bitterly.

The omnic made a small humming sound.

“Do you know if I’m kind now?” Genji mocked.

“No, but I think you have more insight into your own actions than many I’ve met,” the omnic answered. “That is not a bad start for kindness.”

“It’s not really of any use to be insightful if you don’t even know where you’re headed.”

“It’s always of use to be insightful,” the omnic gave back. “Though I agree a path not clearly laid out muddles the thoughts.”

“Where are _you_ going, then, omnic?” Genji said, eager to turn away from this topic.

“Nowhere for now. I am here to assist a few locals in the creation of a small Shambali temple. After that, I will return to my brothers and sisters in Nepal.”

So he had guessed right, Genji thought, he was a Shambali monk.

“If you’re building a temple, why don’t you stay with the monks? They must live somewhere now. This is a dreary place to be around Christmas time.”

The omnic chuckled. It was a pleasant sound, Genji thought, hollow but genuinely joyful.

“I live in a monastery. I already spend all my time with monks. I guess I took the chance to see something else for a while. Especially people who come here now, around Christmas… they are all very interesting, I find.”

‘Sad’ was the word Genji would have used to describe the lot of them, but the monk seemed to be more optimistic.

“Are you tired of being a monk, then?”

“No, not at all. I do think one becomes a more rounded person by meeting people from all walks of life, though. For example, I have a feeling that you wouldn’t have visited me up in the mountains of Nepal, or even in a temple here.”

“You don’t think I’m the faithful kind?” Genji asked, unable to stop sarcasm bleeding into his voice that showed how right the monk was.

“I don’t know that yet, either. But I would like to.” The monk stopped before his pod and stood still for a moment, in that completely motionless, object-like way that humans never could. “I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Zenyatta Tekhartha.”

“Genji,” Genji said. He left out the last name, just in case the monk had ever been in contact with less divine forces around Japan. You couldn’t know where these Shambali omnics had been employed before they’d decided to throw off their shackles, after all.

“Have a good night, Genji,” Zenyatta said before he climbed into his pod.

-

“What are these balls for?”

Across the hallway, Zenyatta sat in his capsule, nine orbs gathered around him on the blanket.

“A friend made them for me,” he said, apparently not bothered that Genji had addressed him out of the blue. “They have several uses. Mostly, they aid me in meditation.”

“Aren’t they too heavy to carry them around all the time?” Genji asked.

“They don’t exceed my model’s specifications for permitted extra weight, so it’s fine,” Zenyatta answered. “Though I can see why a traveller like you would be surprised. You don’t seem to have taken a lot with you on your journey.”

If Zenyatta had had an expression, Genji guessed it’d show curiosity as he glanced at the two elongated poles wrapped in cloth that leaned against the back wall of Genji’s capsule.

“They’re swords,” he said.

“Are they for show or for use?” Zenyatta asked, undisturbed.

“Use.”

“How interesting. Your body is of immensely high tech, yet you gravitate to such archaic weapons.”

“The human race hasn’t evolved to a point where sharp steel doesn’t still cut through their flesh,” Genji said with a malicious edge to his voice that was unpleasant to his own ears. “Even an omnic can be disabled if you snap the right wires.”

“That is true. I don’t suppose I would stand a chance against you,” Zenyatta said.

“You wouldn’t.”

Zenyatta’s build had some elegance, but it came wholly from the slow, deliberate way in which he moved. His wiring was exposed, even loose in some places, hanging in a sling over his waist, and his joints had no protection. The slots that approximated eyes were broad enough to slip the blade of his sword into, so he would only have to fix his head to smash his hard drive with the tip of his blade.

“You didn’t have to think very long about the answer. You must be confident in your abilities,” Zenyatta ventured.

“It was the first thing I thought when I saw you.”

In truth, Genji had no idea why he was telling the monk these things. He certainly didn’t actually mean to hurt him, but perhaps he was trying to scare him. How could he remain so calm in the face of Genji’s words? It was a provocation.

“Did I offend you when we first met?” Zenyatta asked gently.

“It has nothing to do with you in particular.”

Once upon a time, the first thing he might have noticed could have been that Zenyatta had a pleasant voice module or that he was graceful or that he had a way of focusing his whole attention on you during conversation that was intense in a quiet way. Now, Genji’s initial impression of anyone was always a checklist that could be used for threat management against them.

“I see,” Zenyatta answered, simply, rolling one orb in his hands, which produced a rhythmic mechanical clicking noise.

-

“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday.”

It had taken Genji a night’s fitful sleep and a long walk through the city, but when he was back, he had finally knocked at the door to Zenyatta’s pod to say the words he should have told him immediately after their last conversation.

Zenyatta regarded him for a moment and then unfolded himself out of the pod. Though a breakable default service model, he was a couple of inches taller than Genji when he stood.

“Were you lying when you said that ways to kill me were the first thing you thought about when we met?”

This made Genji stop in his tracks. He’d expected to be either forgiven by the kindly monk or have his apology rejected for good reasons, not this.

“No,” he said slowly. “But when you tell someone that, it sounds like a threat.”

“That’s true,” Zenyatta said. “Still, I find it a little worrisome. Isn’t it scary for you to live in a world where you think of everyone as a potential enemy or prey? I think I would find _that_ very threatening.”

There was nothing Genji could say to refute that. The world turned into a very dark place once your own brother had tried to end your life.

“Thank you for your apology,” Zenyatta said after waiting for a moment for the answer that didn’t come.

-

The next time he met Zenyatta, it was not by their capsules, but in an alley Genji had discovered a week ago, part of a small network of narrow streets that led back to the hotel from the train station. He was listening to the radio through receivers in the antennas on his helmet, a function once built into his head to make it possible to tune him onto an Overwatch comm link which Winston had modified so Genji could also use it for entertainment, when a tumble of voices broke through the news chatter.

Zenyatta stood surrounded by five young men in a dead-end street off the alley leading to the boarded-up entrances of some run-down apartment houses. The humans were thugs, gang members. Genji had spent two and a half decades of his life surrounded by people like them, small fries trying to play the big leagues of whatever cartel ran their town, he could pick them out like a bloodhound.

“I don’t think I’ll give this back, bot,” one of them said, and Genji saw him throw something in the air. It was one of the orbs. “It’s kinda pretty. What does an omnic need it for?”

“I don’t want to turn this into a conflict,” Zenyatta said patiently.

They laughed.

“I bet you don’t. What would you do about it, huh?”

Genji didn’t even think before he turned into the dead end lane. The simmering anger that he carried within himself was always ready to burst into flames at any spark and this was more like a burning match. Zenyatta might be confusing and somewhat infuriating with his overly calm demeanour, but he was also the first person Genji had wanted to talk to in goddamn years.

“Give that back to him,” he demanded.

They all turned to look at him.

“The hell? You a bot, too?” one of the punks asked, chucking the ball to one of his buddies, who almost fumbled it before he grabbed it out of the air. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t start shit, we’re busy.”

“I said, give it back. I won’t ask again.”

“Genji…” Zenyatta said, a mild but urgent warning, but Genji didn’t really hear him anymore. He took one more look at the shit-eating grin the man closest to him was wearing and then surged forward and slammed him into the wall.

Immediately, there was a burst of exclamations. Someone tore at his arm, pulling him sideways, and he pushed, backed the guy behind him into the wall on the other side of the alley, throwing his whole body into it and knocking the air out of his lungs. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the flash of knives.

As he tried to evade, the first man he’d jumped on grasped his thigh from where he laid on the ground, throwing him off-balance, and a blade slid between the plating over Genji’s arm, into the flesh. A second knife was aimed at his face, but that dropped to his feet to the tune of a scream as one of Zenyatta’s bronze balls shot forward and rammed into the wrist as if led by an invisible force.

He shared the moment of confusion with the thugs, but unlike them, he was too used to the battlefield to let it throw him off. Pulling the knife from his arm, he kicked both that one and the other down the alley and easily sent one of the attackers stumbling into another man with a third kick.

His first victim had found his way back to his feet and swung at him wildly. The punch glanced off Genji’s face as he turned his head out of the way, but caught on the release of his faceplate, tearing it off with a clatter. Genji dispatched the man with a heel to the stomach.

His opponents grew very quiet, staring at him, and Genji tried not to let the fury running through him make his blood burn and tear the dragon from his chest who would have no doubt cause carnage. Instead, with all eyes on him now, he pushed three shurikens out through his arm and between his knuckles, holding them still.

“How lucky do you feel?” he asked the punk who had been doing the talking.

The answer was, not lucky enough. He took off, his friends in tow. They understood now that Genji was not someone who backed out of a fight before it was well and truly over. The burned, scarred skin of his face and the red-glowing mechanical eyes were testament to that.

He stared after the men until something rapped him lightly on the shoulder. Genji saw Zenyatta holding the faceplate to him, his gaze politely turned to the wall rather than the ruined remains of his face. Genji reattached it, his pulse slowing.

“That was not meditation,” Genji said, glancing at the ball hovering next to Zenyatta.

“I did said they have several uses,” Zenyatta said, with a hint of slyness unbefitting of a monk. He turned back to Genji now. “Thank you. I did not have high hopes of resolving this situation peacefully, unfortunately, and I was outnumbered… still, it was dangerous for you to get involved. As you said, humans have not yet evolved to counter blades.”

“There’s not much left of me that’s human.”

Zenyatta looked down at the trickle of blood welling between the plates of Genji’s armour.

“Evidently still enough,” he answered. After he grasped the ball out of the air, he held it to Genji. “Take this for a moment.”

“Why?” Genji asked.

“It might help.”

As soon as Genji’s hands enveloped the orb, he felt warmth spread through his palms and into his body. Joining the sensation was an odd tingle replacing the pain of the wound, making it grow hot. He could only remember feeling something similar at the receiving end of the equipment Moira and Angela used. It was not the sudden rush like their technology brought, however, but steady a brimming around the wounded flesh, like a hum in his blood. As Genji wrenched off the plating over his remaining arm, he saw that the wound had almost closed already.

“How did you do that?” he asked, replacing the armour.

“I draw energy from the Iris. I don’t have an exact mechanical explanation, if that is what you seek. I only know that it works,” Zenyatta said.

Genji thought about the dragon slumbering inside him and the answer did not seem so strange to him; it was simply surprising that something so mystical could live in the steel construct of Zenyatta’s brittle, factory-made body. Of course, the dragon had not left Genji after he’d been rebuilt, either.

“We should go in case they find reinforcements,” Genji said, tearing himself out of his thoughts.

He didn’t let go of the orb until they were back at the pod hotel.

-

“Are you leaving?” Genji asked.

Zenyatta had been making the bed this morning and packed up the few belongings he had brought alongside the mysterious orbs.

“Yes,” the omnic said. “The temple is mostly finished and I have tarried longer than I should have. It has been very exciting here.”

“I guess no one is going to get you into street fights in a Nepalese monastery,” Genji said and Zenyatta laughed.

“No, I don’t think so,” he agreed. “Which I regret in some ways. I will miss your company. I was right, after all.”

“Right?”

“You are kind.”

Genji snorted.

“I told you I could kill you and I beat up a bunch of punks. I don’t see how I qualify.”

“But you never planned to hurt me, and the men were mean-spirited. There’s two sides to that story.”

“You are kinder than me for seeing that side,” Genji gave back.

“Our view of others is often clearer than that of ourselves,” Zenyatta answered. He seemed to want to say more, but hesitated at first. Then he put down the pillow he had been holding and turned to him. “Say, Genji… if all you do here is not go to Japan, why don’t you come with me?”

“To a monastery?” Genji asked, incredulously. “I doubt I’d make a good monk.”

“We don’t just have monks there… but be that as it may, you wouldn’t have to come all the way. I plan to take a few detours. You could leave my side at any point you choose.”

Genji lowered his gaze. Well, what did he have left to lose? As Zenyatta said, he could run whenever he pleased. Perhaps he’d just stay with him for a day or two. He made Genji curious – and hadn’t he told himself to go after the things that interested him?

“I guess I could change my plans to ‘not going to a Shambali monastery’ for a while,” Genji said as he sat up.


End file.
